How would it work? Republicans currently control the state governments in some key states that Obama won in 2012, such as Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Michigan. It is within their power to pass a law stating that their state's electoral votes would not be winner-take-all, but rather would be distributed according to which candidate wins each congressional district in that state. The remaining two electoral votes (each state has EVs equal to its number of House seats plus 2 Senate seats) would go to the overall winner of votes. Two states already do this - Maine and Nebraska. However, these are small states - one solid red, the other solid blue - and no one cares much about them. Obama actually won the EV from Omaha's congressional district in 2008, but didn't in 2012.
This may sound reasonable. In fact, it would be pretty fair if the political leanings of a state's congressional districts were roughly in line with how the state voted in presidential elections - it would give a voice to minority voters in solid red or blue states. However, the problem is that congressional districts are redrawn by state legislatures every 10 years, after each census. The Tea Party wave in 2010 enabled Republicans in many states to gerrymander districts in their states to favor Republican candidates. Now, both parties have used their legislative power to gerrymander districts in the past, but the effects of 2010 have put the Republicans at a large advantage in this arena. The most common and effective way for Republicans to gerrymander a district is to clump all the Democratic voters together in one or two districts. You thus cede those districts to Democrats, but it leaves Republicans alone to dominate the rest of the state. You might end up with a Democratic candidate winning 75% of the vote in his district, and a Republican candidate winning 53% in his, but in the eyes of Congress, it's all the same.
The 2012 elections bore witness to the success of Republicans' 2010 gerrymandering. The Republicans managed to hold onto their House of Representatives majority, despite the fact that more people voted for House Democratic candidates than Republican candidates, In other words, just like Bush in 2000, the House GOP lost the popular vote, and still won. It is this strategy that Republicans in key states are trying to cement into the electoral college.
These maps illustrate exactly how this plan could be put into action to almost guarantee a Republican president in 2016. Notice that Obama won each state, some by healthy margins. But notice how few of the House seats are Democratic; this is due to gerrymandering. To be specific, let's look at Pennsylvania. The vote count here was Obama 2,907,448; Romney 2,619,583. A margin of victory for Obama of almost 300,000 votes, or 5.2%, owing to strong support in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Erie. So under the rules of the 200-plus-year-old system, Obama won all 20 of the state's EVs. Under the Republican plan, however, Romney would've won probably 13 EVs (assuming he won every R House district) and Obama 7. An even nastier plan that's out there would give the 2 at-large EVs to whoever won the most House districts, yielding a score of Romney 15, Obama 5. How is that possibly fair? Oh, that's right, it's not. Add that up in enough states (see above), and it would have been possible for us to inaugurate President Romney this week despite him losing the national popular vote by 3.5 million votes.
There is absolutely no honest defense for this plan. It is subverting democracy, plan and simple, and making it more possible for an increasingly unpopular minority to upset the majority will of the people. Republicans are trying to spin it as saying it's about taking away the dominance of urban voters at the expense of rural voters. That is, to quote our VP, malarkey. Every person's vote is equal (in swing states anyway - I'll get to that in a minute). If Obama gets 85% of the vote in Philly, tough. That's how it works. This attempt to change to system simply makes urban votes worth less than rural ones, instead of them being equal. And, of course, it's only underway in states where it would benefit Republicans. You don't hear about them trying to make the system "fairer" in, say, Georgia - which probably would've given 5 EVs to Obama in a solid Romney state.
To their credit, some Republicans seem to realize this is a bad idea. The Florida Speaker of the House compared it to ending a football game after the 3rd quarter just because you're ahead. (My sports analogy would be it's like saying only shots that Democrats make from the paint in a basketball game count). Smart Republicans know that this plan might win them an election or two, but in the long run it'll come back to, pardon, bite them in the ass. Not only will they be seen as undermining majority will if the popular vote winner handily loses an election or two, but you better believe Democrats will take advantage of the new rules at their first opportunity. Again, demographic trends being what they are, that's likely to happen soon - perhaps after the 2020 census. It would set us down a path that would render the electoral college a true sham of democracy.
Of course, some would argue it already is. So let's fix it. There's a much fairer way to proportionally award a state's electoral votes - just do it by vote count. This is done in many other countries. For example, when a German votes for the Bundestag (Parliament), she votes for both a candidate in her district and a party she favors. Parties then get awarded seats according to the proportion of the party votes they received. Under this scenario, the EV split in Pennsylvania would've been something like Obama 12, Romney 8. Extrapolate that to the whole country, and Obama still would have won, but the EV count would've been a lot closer than 332 to 206. It would've reflected the national popular vote. It makes votes across the country - not just in swing states - mean something, and it's not subject to political shenanigans every 10 years. Of course, for this to happen both parties need to be convinced that it's in their best interests. Perhaps this attempt by some Republicans to thwart democracy will be a wake-up call sufficient for Americans to demand a fairer electoral system.
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